Phantom + A90 question

Isn't the cadenza the same body type as the Jubilee? This is the first I have heard of a quirky design...

Any cartridge (or headshell) with a non-flat mounting surface is potentially quirky. For a manufacturer to offer two such models isn't less so, it's doubly so.

Owners who wish to reduce cartridge/headshell contact can use aftermarket, point-contact spacers. The 3-pointed ones from Mapleshade can be fitted with the single point toward the front or the rear, which doubles the chances of a fit. Accordingly, they may be regarded as semi-quirky.

I doubt contact with the third ridge would have altered the sound - at least with an arm having easy azimuth adjustment like the Phantom.

With resolving components like this, changes in cartridge/headshell contact always alter the sound - even when azimuth remains constant.

Don't take my word for it. Try changing your mounting screws from stainless steel to brass to nylon - without altering azimuth or any other parameter. I guarantee you'll hear differences.

Think about how a phono cartridge works: anything that vibrates the coils or magnets generates a signal (or alters a signal being generated by other vibrations, such as those induced by record groove modulations). Stray vibrational energies within the cartridge body feed back into the armature and magnets, distorting their movements and therefore distorting the original signal. So, changing the behavior of these energies will alter the sound of the system.

The behavior of stray cartridge-body vibrations is heavily influenced by cartridge/headshell contact, as the screw material experiment mentioned above easily demonstrates. Altering the number, size or placement of cartridge/headhsell contact patches also alters those behaviors. Ortofon chose 3 contact points because they believe this cartridge sounds best this way.

I've no idea if Ortofon was right, if 3 contact points sound "better" or "worse" than 2 or 4 or a flat surface - but I guarantee they'd all sound different.

Interesting idea, although a single ridge on the centerline of a cartridge is superior for azimuth adjustment, as it only allows the the cartidge to rotate about one axis. I've used that method on tonearms which lacked azimuth adjustment. It wasn't any more tedious than using the adjustments on some tonearms, though other arms make it easy of course.

My guess (only) is that Ortofon wished to minimize contact between cartridge and headshell for resonance control reasons, rather like the 3-point Mapleshade isolator, and didn't consider the quirks this might present for small headshells like the Phantom's.